OpenEM: Large-scale multi-structural 3D datasets for electromagnetic methods

TL;DR

OpenEM is a comprehensive large-scale 3D geoelectric dataset designed to advance deep learning applications in electromagnetic geological exploration, featuring diverse models and a fast forward modeling method.

Contribution

The paper introduces OpenEM, a novel, publicly available 3D geoelectric dataset with diverse geological structures and a deep learning-based fast forward modeling approach.

Findings

OpenEM covers nine categories of geoelectric models.

A deep learning-based fast forward modeling method is developed.

OpenEM accelerates deep learning research in electromagnetic exploration.

Abstract

Electromagnetic methods have become one of the most widely used techniques in geological exploration. With the remarkable success of deep learning, applying such techniques to EM methods has emerged as a promising research direction to overcome the limitations of conventional approaches. The effectiveness of deep learning methods depends heavily on the quality of datasets, which directly influences model performance and generalization ability. Existing application studies often construct datasets from random one-dimensional or structurally simple three-dimensional models, which fail to represent the real geological environments. Furthermore, the absence of standardized, publicly 3D geoelectric datasets continues to hinder progress in deep learning based EM exploration. To address these limitations, we present OpenEM, a large-scale, multi-structural three-dimensional geoelectric dataset that encompasses a broad range of geologically plausible subsurface structures. OpenEM consists of nine categories of geoelectric models, spanning from simple configurations with anomalous bodies in half-space to more complex structures such as flat layers, folded layers, flat faults, curved faults, and their corresponding variants with anomalous bodies. Since three-dimensional forward modeling in electromagnetics is extremely time-consuming, we further developed a deep learning based fast forward modeling approach for OpenEM, enabling efficient and reliable forward modeling across the entire dataset. This capability allows OpenEM to be rapidly deployed for a wide range of tasks. OpenEM provides a unified, comprehensive, and large-scale dataset for common EM exploration systems to accelerate the application of deep learning in electromagnetic methods.The complete dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17141981.